Quick service restaurant chain KFC used mobile location technology provided by xAd, a leader in location that enables marketers to accurately reach the right people based on the real places they visit every day, to promote a new burrito product range and drive additional store visits.

Challenge

The quick service restaurant market is a competitive one with restaurants battling it out to convert hungry and time-poor customers. When it comes to sensing consumer appetite at the right time and in the right place, quick serving restaurants like KFC need to be increasingly innovative to engage their audience and drive store visitation. KFC wanted to reach new, wider audiences and drive additional store visits by promoting its product range.

Explaining why the restaurant chain wanted to embark on a campaign leveraging mobile location technology, Jenny Packwood, Head of Digital, PR & Brand Communications at KFC, commented: “Our target audience tends to be young adults and busy families who are becoming more and more reliant on their mobile devices to make their lives easier. Leveraging the most accurate location technology helps us reach our audience at the right place and at the right time with offers that are relevant to them.”

Solution

To achieve this, KFC and media agency partner Blue449 leveraged location technology that would help them deliver more precise campaigns and personalised customer experiences to new and existing audiences based on where they are which is the best indicator of who they are and what they are most likely to respond to (or be interested in). Location data holds this power. With consumers increasingly expecting brand communications to add value to their everyday experiences rather than simply interrupting their activities, it’s important that marketers strive to understand exactly where their audiences spend their time, what they are doing in these places and the types of communications they are most receptive to.

The xAd Global Location Snapshot highlights that 77% of agencies and marketers in Western Europe are already realising the importance of location to supercharge their campaigns and with mobile location data effectively acting as a real world cookie, this real time data source is the future of effective personalisation.

Process

KFC launched a three month-long mobile location targeting campaign in March this year to promote its burrito range. KFC leveraged xAd technology and worked with Blue449 to identify potential customers within the proximity of KFC and competitor stores, with accurate proximity targeting and conquest targeting of similar category restaurants. Combining these targeting levers helped tailor messaging and promotions and ultimately helped boost KFC store visits, achieving the specific mobile KPIs set.

To deliver a personalised customer experience, xAd targeted quick service food consumers to identify and reach the relevant target audience for KFC. The chain found that the most receptive demographic to location-based targeting were busy parents and families. This insight drove the quick service restaurant to tailor its campaign for this audience with dynamic creative content which showed the distance to the nearest store.

Results

Through leveraging the most accurate and precise location technology with xAd, KFC’s campaign in successfully drove nearby consumers into KFC stores through proximity targeting and conquest targeting at competitor locations. In addition to an uplift in store visitation, the campaign showed that engaging with customers nearby KFC stores drove a click through rate 40% above the industry benchmark.

With xAd’s location technology going far beyond just informing where someone is, to define precisely who a person is and what they might be interested in, KFC is progressing further on the journey towards true personalisation.